IT'S TIME TO THINK PAST YOUR GUNS

For a long time after our birth as a nation, the very existence of a heavily armed populace kept the central authorities and their power in check. Our brilliant system, with innovative separation of powers and an independent judiciary, got the American self-governance experiment underway. Freedom to defend yourself, pursue your own interests and exercise self-reliance sustained the nation. We quickly became the envy of and a magnet for the world's people yearning to be free. Americans bear arms — what a concept! That was then.

You and I have lived through and enjoyed times when factual discussions and realistic arguments about guns — without firing them at domestic enemies — could win the day. Free speech got us that. We prefer debate instead of fighting, a fresh idea. The facts are on our side. History is on our side. Precedent is on our side. The holdings of the nation's Founders were with us. The right to survive — the law of the jungle — is on our side. We have won grandly. Many of us now carry, discreetly, 20 million by the latest count, using the government's obnoxious permission slips (and taxes called "fees"). Significantly more carry constitutionally, no papers required. Marksmanship, forced on us by permit protocols, would be more rightly set in schooling. We're working on that. .....